day two hundred and fifty two, china glaze thunderbird

here's another goodie from china glaze called thunderbird. thunderbird is from the fall 2009 'retro divas' collection and is the birthplace of my favourite blackened reds by china glaze! thunderbird is one of them, it's a bright ruby red shade...like a fantastic red lipstick! it's more red toned than skate night which leant a bit more burgundy. i love these blackened shades, they are darker on the outside and it looks like they are glowing in the centre of your nail. the glass fleck effect of china glaze polishes works super well here!

day two hundred and ten, china glaze 2030

thanks for nobody noticing/pointing out that i accidentally wrote 100 yesterday instead of 200! i've since realised and fixed my error!

okay. more from the china glaze khromes collection...aka the collection that just looks bad on my nails. i have no idea what a good ridge filler base coat might be (i currently use essie billionails and bb couture hard on to try and strengthen my nails as they have a great tendency to peel...one of the side effects of swapping your polish every day!) so it just isn't that flattering. i definitely might consider revisiting these if i found a great ridge filler basecoat so i could do something besides stare at the imperfections on my nails! it's like staring at your face in a magnifying mirror...you can't help but be amazed and disgusted by your pores! (if anyone can suggest a good ridge filler i will happily accept any and all tricks and suggestions!)

anyway, i had a bit of trouble capturing the real colour here (our wondrous week of sunshine and warmth has gone back to grey and rain...so back to normal non awesome swatching weather so i alternate between lamps and natural light fiddling around with the settings on my camera to get the best picture possible [once i get a full time job i totally want to save up for a proper camera/light set!]) so imagine it as falling somewhere between these two colours. it's a FANTASTIC konad gold stamping polish (right now...that's the only selling point of this collection to me since it isn't flattering my nails). speaking as someone who bought the actual konad brand gold and silver polish i was pretty annoyed to find out that they're kind of useless if you want the image to show up. enter the khromes collection! it does what the konad polishes do not (this reminds me i should start konad-ing again!)...so. yes. i need to stop before i ramble, it's been an incredibly long day (i just got home!!!)

(but i did pick up 3 different rococo polishes today and hope to swatch them after/during the easter bank holidays! so keep your eyes peeled :D)

day two hundred and five, china glaze millennium

okay. china glaze millennium from the khrome collection. the best thing about this polish is that it is the perfect konad stamping silver. the bad news is that i don't really like this polish as just polish on my nails. it's a really lovely silver, and it is almost minx-like in its reflectivity...but the finish is atrocious. it's this really delicate metallic and it shows every nail imperfection and is on the brushstroke-y side. you can see the imperfections in my nails (and those weird raised dot things) and it's just not that attractive. i don't really know how to remedy that so i'll just keep this as my stamping polish!

as a plus it does have great opacity. just a bad finish

day two hundred and one, china glaze tempest

okay, i'm super excited about this one! this is called 'Tempest' by China Glaze...i have no idea what collection it is from or when it was released, i got it in a swap and i'm really pleased by it! it hugs the blurple line, it is a blurple and blue and purple all at once depending on which way you see it. sometimes it's blue, sometimes purple or sometimes blurple! it's just really cool. usually polishes are just 'blurples' not a combination! really really pretty, has typical china glaze glass fleck shimmer...a bit sheer so this was 4 thin coats but definitely worth it!

okay, i am not usually one to talk about non nail polish products but in my first Overall Beauty (BB Couture) order the lovely owner, Kim, sent me this lip balm as part of my order (gratis!). i am not really a new product person when it comes to lip balms, my skin is very sensitive and the wrong product makes me break out in a rash all over and around my lips which is unsightly and soooo uncomfortable. but i ran out of my usual lip balm (reve de miel by nuxe) and took a chance on this product and i'm very pleased. it's all natural, no creepy chemicals, just beeswax, shea butter, vitamin e, cocoa butter and almond oil. you can buy it from the mytracystreat website for $3.95. no one asked me to do this review and the company has never heard of me. i just wanted to share a positive product experience! i definitely get annoyed at all the chemicals in lip balms since we intentionally (or unintentionally) consume orally a lot of the chapstick we apply....that's a lot of weird stuff going into your body!

day one hundred and ninety four, china glaze emerald sparkle

ahhh the gloriously gorgeous china glaze emerald sparkle. people FREAKED when this was first released as part of the 2008 holiday collection...it was so exciting and wonderful! it's a stunning blackish jelly positively jam packed with green glitter. it's a great polish year round...it glows on your fingers, it really is like wearing emeralds. it's just so pretty and catches the light so well, it never looks boring! it is definitely one of my favourites and helped kick off my china glaze love!

day one hundred and seventy four, china glaze octa gone wild

okay this is one of the few times you will ever see a stock picture of the bottle...and only because i realised after i took and uploaded pictures that the funky london sun (that actually is appearing on and off) totally washed out these pictures. so it was great for capturing the prismatic effect but totally terrible for accurately displaying the colour! (and i was too lazy to take a picture of the bottle and upload it)

octa gone wild is another from the ridiculously amazing china glaze kaleidescope collection (i think it's the only china glaze collection i ever bought in full) and like the rest, has a gorgeous rainbow shimmer effect. you can really see the rainbow in these photos but trust me, the colour is just like it is in the bottle! you can't trust london sunlight...it's like white light...but sun? i don't know. but i do looooove this colour/collection

day one hundred and sixty seven, china glaze for audrey

don't forget to enter my giveaway where you can win TEN bottles of nail polish!!! (winner is announced in 2 days)

okay. this is a faux lobster hands post. lobster hands is when a particular shade of polish makes your skin appear red because it doesn't work with your skintone. i tweaked with the balance on my camera for these photos because i was struggling to capture the true colour of this polish and i'm not 100% sure i succeeded!! but by tweaking the balance i turned my skin red in the photos

for audrey is named after audrey hepburn's portrayal in breakfast at tiffany's, this colour is an incredibly close match to the colour of tiffany blue boxes. it's a really amazing blue...i'm not even sure how to best describe it! it's a bright turquoise...and it isn't a dupe for any polish i've ever seen!


i will say the application was worrying. the first coat was really weird, watery and streaky...it was like a mac nail polish. but the second coat went on evenly and all was well. i did not put a 3rd coat on...i was worried it might somehow disturb the delicate balance of getting this polish to look pretty on my nails

day one hundred and sixy one, china glaze awaken

alright. excuse my stained duvet from nail polish accidents past, usually it's all nice and hidden but i just tossed the duvet cover in the wash!

china glaze 'awaken' is from the romantique collection from last spring and it's a really pretty frosty/metallic/shiny blue-grey. it's really pretty and no real visible brushstroke problems (which is such a killer with frosts...it has made them my least favourite finish!) this is another great konad stamper polish, it is what i used way back when i did my green cow with silver spots! i don't know how 'me' this colour is...so it might just become a strictly stamping polish but it is beautiful when it catches the light!

day one hundred and forty eight, china glaze sexagon

alright. seriously. someone needs to confiscate my cards and wipe their numbers from my brain and computer. i've made 3 separate polish orders in about a week. but i'm so excited to continue bringing you new brands and new colours by my favourite brands. but i will say that 2 are completely new brands (and haven't actually been around that long...i can't WAIT!)

but onto today...china glaze, sexagon. the kalediscope collection is what got me into china glaze to begin with, and just LOOK! can you BLAME ME!? this silver holographic polish is bright and rainbow reflective like the opi designer series but the shimmer is 100% different (which is why you can justify owning all of both :D). sexagon is like wearing a disco ball on each finger, it's very reflective and eye catching.

i WILL say that this is about 5 thin coats. it needs to be built to this level of opacity. there's nothing wrong with how it looks after 3 coats...but i don't like being able to see my natural nail underneath my polish so i did 5 coats. BUT it doesn't look thick or goopy on your finger (nor is it in application). totally worth the extra 2 coats and the drying time is lickety split, it's really fast so you don't even notice that you put on 5 coats because it dries so fast.

isn't it AMAZING!?